Christie’s Sandy Aid Ask a Threat to John Boehner’s Speakership

Share With Friends

1. The total amount of aid that will be requested by the states affected by Sandy will be between $80 billion and $100 billion.

2. House and Senate Republicans seem poised to demand offsetting spending cuts for the aid.

3. Boehner does indeed have a huge political problem that’s will be made even larger than I had assumed in March by what is certain to be an unrelenting demand for the additional spending from the suddenly very popular Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.

How does Boehner agree to the aid without offsets without completely alienating his tea party wing?

Given that the White House isn’t likely to propose them, how does Boehner come up with $100 billion in spending cuts from the domestic side of the budget that will be politically acceptable to anyone — including Republicans — given that would be about 20 percent of all nondefense appropriations?

Of course it is completely insane for Republicans to insist on a 20 percent cut to nondefense appropriations at a time when yields on 10-year Treasuries are negative. There’s nothing fiscally conservative about paying for disaster aid out of current taxes when investors will literally pay to lend you money.